


Samurai Quest

by IndigoMay



Series: Quartet [1]
Category: Power Rangers Ninja Storm
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-05
Updated: 2014-01-05
Packaged: 2018-01-07 12:18:28
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,707
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1119747
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IndigoMay/pseuds/IndigoMay
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Miko Shiba wanted to be part of something greater. It turned out differently than she thought it would.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Samurai Quest

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Hagar](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hagar/gifts).



> Some of the dialogue is directly from "Samurai Journey: Part 2."

There were rumors of a ninja academy near the coast of California.

Miko Shiba had studied to be a samurai for years. She was from the distaff branch of House Shiba, but her father had trained with his (distant) cousin when they were young, and he had taught her in turn, and she had trained _so hard_ but-

Well. Her (distant) cousin wasn’t interested in someone _distaff_ fighting for him. He had his team and he didn’t want someone _self-taught_ coming in to help them train.

Miko didn’t let tears come. She took her amulet in hand, looking at the small green ball. She had _earned_ the right to fight as a samurai, and if Lord Shiba would deny her-

Well. The Nighlok couldn’t be the only enemies out there. And a ninja academy sounded like a nice change of pace.

* * *

_There were stories, from the old days, of quests for power. They said that the first Lord Shiba had gained their morphers from a wise man that lived deep in the mountains and was served by a strange creature. Miko didn’t know where this man was, but she had a feeling that her path would not be there._

_Instead, she meditated and drew symbols around her before she slept- dream, future, and journey_. _She hoped that this would encourage dreams that would lead her to the path of a samurai worthy of serving Lord Shiba in his fight against the Nighlok._

_It took a week before the first dream came. She saw six people on a field of battle, fighting people she couldn’t see clearly. The colors were strange- there were two Blue Rangers, and two Red, and one Yellow, and no Pink or Green._

_She woke from that dream and spent the whole day training. If there were_ two _teams of Rangers, fighting as one against the same foe…they might be able to destroy him._

_She trained and dreamed again and again, and she never saw a Pink or Green Ranger. What was more, the Rangers she saw had strange costumes, completely unlike the Samurai Rangers. She didn’t know who they were, but she knew that they would be important._

_It took three weeks for Miko to see the Mountain in her dreams, but the first time she saw it, she knew it was her destiny._

_She had embraced her parents before going on her quest, walking alone. She’d wanted to camp like in the old quests, but she wasn’t going to pay through the nose for campgrounds that may or may not be on her path, and Motel 6 really wasn’t much different._

_She drew the symbols every night, as she always had, and the last night before she reached the Mountain, the dream changed. There was a boy wearing green in the midst of a room filled with technology. He fiddled with some of it and then looked up to see the display._

_Miko woke up with the boy’s face in her mind and the name_ Cam _on her lips._

* * *

She hadn’t exactly expected to be called to fight on stage. In fact, the sensei in charge of the Academy had insisted that she wear robes that covered her entirely and gave no hint to what Clan she owed blood loyalty to. Though fighting the arrogant boy in red to a standstill had been too much of a pleasure.

Miko had no intention of letting her anger with Lord Shiba poison any relationships she may form within her new beginning. She went out in private to train, to get the anger out, and of _course_ she was trailed by a sleaze in yellow.

“Please. Don’t stop.” He said with a hint of a chuckle. Miko disliked him immediately. “The pendant— it’s beautiful. May I?” He was already reaching out and Miko grabbed her amulet protectively.

“I’m sorry,” she said, scrambling for an excuse. “It’s a family heirloom. You understand.”

Well, pretending that she’d inherited a green amulet would do a great deal to conceal her Shiba roots.

“Of course,” he said, and then his eyes went dark.

“Am I interrupting?” the other student in a light uniform, like her, said, and Miko moved back, shaking her head. What had just- what had the Yellow boy done with his eyes? “I’m sorry, Miko, I wanted to ask you about your samurai techniques.”

Well, there was that secret blown.

“Of course,” she said, forcing a smile and stuffing her amulet under her shirt.

She knew that boy's face; the one that had broken whatever trance the sleaze put her in. She had seen it during the last night of her quest.

* * *

_Miko fought her way through the mountain. The spirits were vicious, wishing to end her life and trap her as they were trapped, but Miko had not trained all those years for nothing. The symbol power managed against them, and if it didn’t, Miko was swift with her sword._

_She fought her way into a cavern, where something small glowed on the wall. She reached for it on instinct, not thinking of whether it was a trap-_

_It wasn't. She came away with a small amulet, an orb with a hole through it, and she smiled. This was what she had come for._

_Getting out was easier than coming in, and when Miko reached the end of the Mountain, she went through her backpack and found a bit of leather cord that she brought just in case she'd need it. She strung it through the amulet, tying the knot and tucking it inside._

_She had a source of Power. She could join the Samurai Rangers in their fight._

* * *

"The Samurai spirit has been passed down my family for generations," Miko said, and technically it was not a lie.

"And the amulet?" the boy asked,

"Yes. It was given to me by my father," Miko said, too quickly, and she worried that he'd see through her. Her Samurai birthline  _was_ through her father, and Miko didn't want to go too much into the Shiba clan or be accused of blaspheming the family name. "Tell me about your family," she said to distract him.

"Well, my father's my sensei, and my mother died when I was young," the boy said, and Miko felt like dirt.

"I'm sorry," she said.

The boy's half-smile broke her heart. "She was a great warrior," he said. "My father says that she would never approve of the life I'm living now- if she could see what I was doing."

Miko did not scoff. It was a great effort. "I've a feeling that if she could see you now, she might feel differently," Miko said, instead of,  _sometimes people like to hide behind what they percieve other people's beliefs to be instead of saying that things remain the way they are because **they** will it_ _so_.

The look on his face prompted her to leave him for a bit. He might want to adjust to that on his own. And she had to figure out what had made her dream of him when she had meant to dream of the future.

* * *

_Miko morphed Green._

_She hadn’t expected that. She was descended from the blood of Red Rangers, after all. But she looked at herself in the mirror, looked at the green skirt, and decided that she liked it, even if it had a bit too much armor at the top. She had never been fond of breastplates._

_She could do this, though. She could fight in support of House Shiba._

_When Lord Shiba granted her an audience, she came fully morphed, with her helmet off. Little Lauren saw her first and her eyes went wide as saucers. Miko smiled at her and she darted back into the house._

_"You requested an audience," her cousin said behind her, and Miko turned with a smile._

_"I found a way to morph," Miko said. "I want to help you defeat Xandred."_

_"Where did you discover this?!" her cousin demanded. "You aren't properly trained!"_

_Miko scowled at him. "Our fathers trained together, and my father taught me," she snapped. "I quested for Power and I have a morpher. I can **help you**. If we bring more firepower against the Nighlok, we can win much faster. We may even strike him down and ensure that he never rises again."_

_" **I** am the one to seal him back," Lord Shiba snapped. "We have no need of you. It is the duty of the Samurai Rangers to fight, and the Samurai Rangers use the morphers the first Lord Shiba quested for. We have no need of a morpher found during a quest of ill-determined legitimacy."_

_"I want to help you do that!" Miko waved her hands in exasperation, deciding to ignore his insults to her journey for the sake of her cause._

_"You will not need to," Lord Shiba said. "You may go. And if I see you fighting, I will lay claim to your morpher."_

_Miko did not let anything show on her face. "Very well, my lord," she said coolly. "Perhaps you will see the wisdom of my assistance in time."_

* * *

Miko really shouldn't have been surprised that the sleaze tried to steal her amulet. She was more angry that he had done it while she was trying to draw protective symbols, so she'd have to move tents. Failed protective symbols left residue that made them impossible to redraw. And then the fight the boy- _Cam_ - went through with the sleaze- _  
_

Miko realized what had happened the moment he said "I'm out of time!"

All of those dreams...she hadn't been seeing House Shiba's fight. She didn't try to reclaim her amulet.

"Goodbye, Cam," she said, letting him go.

Him coming here was a warning. There would be a war coming to the ninjas and they would need Power to win it. From what Miko had seen, these people did have elemental power, but there wasn't a morpher in sight.

Well. She'd already quested once. Surely she could find Power sources for the five she had seen.

The boy she'd fought before the Academy stepped close and Miko glanced at him before looking back to where Cam had left.

She had a quest to begin soon.

**Author's Note:**

> This, unlike most of my fills for these challenges, is one chapter. This is because I forgot to copy the prompts to a word doc before going into the mountains without Wi-Fi. However, the other three prompts are still going to be filled, and soon.
> 
> Also, I do not like House Shiba as a whole. Can you tell?
> 
> Lord Shiba did listen to Miko more than he knew. Unfortunately, he used "more power among two Shibas" to mean "I should send my daughter to train the symbol and have her brother as the one the Nighloks will target and possibly kill!" Miko definitely smacked him when she reached the afterlife.


End file.
